Farmer Frank from eHarmony...

Ah, I had such hopes for Farmer Frank.

I received his profile at the end of August...just a couple of days after I signed up for eHarmony. His profile caught my eye immediately...47, 6'4" (so I could wear my big girl shoes with him!), attorney in Dallas who had two out of three same "best life skills" as me (raising and/or caring for children; remaining calm yet resilient in a crisis) and showed he had a sense of humor in his answers ("Reading ? What is that ? Some kind of intellectual activity ? I seldom read for fun after reading all day long..... The last book I read was One Fish..Two Fish"). When he contacted me a day or so later, I was excited!

The way eHarmony works is you can either send an icebreaker ("hey! your profile caught my attention! Wanna have sex?"...okay, joking, but you get the idea) or you can send a set of 5 questions from a batch of about 30; i.e. "how much space do you need in a relationship" or "what is your idea of adventure?", etc. The respondent can either answer a, b, c, d or e come up with a written answer of their own.

Farmer Frank and I seemed to click well from the beginning...similar sense of humor, similar beliefs, etc. He was intelligent, articulate, funny and interesting. I was getting hooked.

Once we completed the next steps of sharing our "must haves" and "can't stands" (my must haves included "Emotionally Healthy......I must have a partner who is emotionally healthy, and able to share a stable life with someone else" and "Strong Character......I must have a partner who is honest and strong enough to do the right thing"; for those that know me well you know why I picked those) and answering second questions (this time you can write your own) we were cut free to email one another back and forth through the eHarmony secure server.

And it only seemed to get better. We seemed to get along so well via email...and the more I found out about him (he was a national merit scholar, got a scholarship to University of Dallas, lost it due to partying too much his first year, ended up working his way through undergrad, graduate (Masters in psychology from UNT) and law school (Texas Tech) by being a cop; grew up on a farm in upstate New York (hence the nickname Farmer Frank), had three boys he was VERY involved in raising), the more I liked him.

Unfortunately, I met him just as my contract job started getting really busy...and I told him that I really would not be able to offer him more than that until I got back from the conference in Atlanta and my company's meeting in Nashville at the end of October. I dreaded telling him this, but his response was so...perfect it only made me like him more.

So, for the next 6 weeks we emailed and eventually talked on the phone.

I do need to offer up this nugget of information that gave me pause. That's a bit of an understatement, mind you. Mid September, long after he told me about his 3 boys (11, 8 and 2) I started thinking about that 2 year old. Having a 2 years old is REALLY young to be divorced...even though I was divorced by the time Makena was 18 months. But, it nagged me. So, I decided to check the Internet and find out if he was really divorced (I had accidentally found you can look up divorces on Dallas county website). I was able to do this as by this time we were emailing from our personal email addresses (mine was still a made up one without my last name, but his was his law office email and it had his full name on it). So, I looked it up. I found a divorce...but it was in 1985. I'll tell you that his name is not terribly common, so I knew it had to be him. Okay, so he's been married 2 times and I don't know if he's divorced the 2nd time or not. His profile doesn't really say, so he could be in process, right?

So, I asked him via email. His response (and he was a little short about it) was that he was divorced. Okay, well maybe Tarrant county doesn't post divorces?

So, that was swirling in my head when I went to my brother Brian's house one Sunday and he ended up looking up Farmer Frank in PublicData.com. For those of you not familiar with that, what a crazy service that is. If you know someones first, middle and last name, you can basically find out all kinds of stuff about them. And let me tell ya, did I get an eye full about Farmer Frank. There was the first marriage that I found (married 5 years)...then there was a second (2 years)...then a third (4 years)...a finally the marriage license for the 4th and most recent (married in '94)...but no divorce shown. My heart sank. Married 4 times??? No sign of a 4th divorce?? Yikes! Who is this guy I'm talking to? Beyond that, his drivers license shows him still living at the familial house in Mansfield. Holy crap. Not only is he not divorced, but he's still living with his wife!

Brian said, "well, seems like he's a serial monogamist...if he's monogamous." Egads.

So, I thought about it. What do I do? "Hey, Frank, while doing a background check on you I discovered you've been married for 4 times and I'm not exactly sure if you're still married or not...care to clarify for me?" No, that's not really a way to approach it. (note: rationalization coming) Geez...we all have skeletons in our closets, right? How do you get to 40 something years old without having a couple of things in your past that you'd rather not have everyone knowing about? Just in his case they were public data.

So, armed with my rationalizaiton, I decided to make Brian the scapegoat. I emailed FF that Brian, who was an ultraprotective older brother, asked me what I knew about him...where did he live, etc?

Since this question was just a day after the divorce question, I'm sure he was having flashbacks to his police officer days...except he was the one being questioned this time. So, he was probably a little more pissy this time. But he told me exactly where he lived including his apartment number. I realized at that point the only thing I could do was take him at his word, but remain cautious given the other info I had tucked away.

The weeks wound down. We decided on a date for our date: Saturday, October 25th for dinner. We continued to email...although I will say it was a little more sporadic on his side. Hmmm...I assumed he had began dating someone. Which was fine, as long as I got to finally meet him. After 6 weeks of playful banter and with the other info I knew, I had to get a look at this guy.

Finally, I was done with the conference in Atlanta and the meeting in Nashville. The week of the date was upon us. Monday...he was busy in a mediation and not terribly communicative about what was the scoop with our date (I gotta figure out what to do with Makena...this takes advance planning on the scope of D-Day). Tuesday...nothing. Okay, what the hell is going on? Are you freakin' kidding me? David (college boyfriend mentioned in previous blog) couldn't believe there was no plan in place...for me, it had been so long since I actually went on a date I wasn't sure what the protocol was supposed to be. Wednesday...at least we have a time (7pm), but not much else. Sigh. I'm getting slightly peeved and about ready to write this guy off without a second thought. Friday...finally, we got a date and a time. The Grape @ 7...we'll meet there.

Saturday was as usual busy...biking to breakfast, biking to soccer game, clean out my Cheez-it and other-assorted-kid-snacked-out car. By chance, I checked my email at 3...and I found an email titled "I have strep throat". You've got to be kidding me? An email sent 7 hours before a date? Why didn't he call me (he had my cell)? Whatever. I sent him a short "get well!" email and went and had a great time at my church's Oktoberfest (which I had forgotten was that night and I had been bummed about missing!). Pam (friend from early service) and Scott (her fiance she was marrying following Saturday) both called BS on the strep, which is what I pretty much thought myself.

I sent him a "get well" note...more to see if I would actually hear from him. I sent it Tuesday, and figured he'd get it Thursday. Lo and behold, Thursday he sends me an email that he is "just back to the office today" and that the strep went to his skin (uh, ewwwww!!!!!) and can we try again. I replied I had gotten the gift that keeps on giving from Makena once and felt lousy for a few days as well. Didn't respond on the date mulligan.

The next day was Halloween, and that day and the next he was very communicative. Okay, maybe we can reschedule.

I do need to say that just because I was chatting with Farmer Frank did not stop me from chatting with others as well...namely Kent/Kurt from Chemistry. Kent/Kurt was going to be in town for a meeting at the Gaylord...did I want to meet either Wednesday or Thursday? Since Wednesday is church dinner night, Thursday it was. 7:30 at Esparzas in Grapevine.

So, when Farmer Frank wanted to meet for lunch, the only day I had available was Thursday, the same day as my dinner with Kent/Kurt. Holy crap, not only would I have my first date in 16 years on Thursday, I'd have my second, too...